National Instruments, or NI (NASDAQ: NATI), is an American company with over 4,000 employees and direct operations in 41 countries. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, it is a producer of automated test equipment and virtual instrumentation software. Their software products include LabVIEW, a graphical development environment, LabWindows/CVI, which provides VI tools for C, TestStand, a test sequencing and management environment, and Multisim (formerly Electronics Workbench), an electrical circuit analysis program.

Their hardware products include VXI, VMEbus, and PXI frames and modules, as well as interfaces for GPIB, I²C, and other industrial automation standards. They also sell real-time embedded controllers, including Compact FieldPoint and CompactRIO. Common applications include data acquisition, instrument control and machine vision.

In 2006, the company sold products to more than 25,000 companies in 90 countries with revenues of $660 million. For ten consecutive years since 2000, Fortune magazine named National Instruments one of the 100 best companies to work for in America. In the early 1970s, three young men, James Truchard, Jeff Kodosky, and Bill Nowlin, were working at the University of Texas at Austin Applied Research Laboratories.

As part of a project conducting research for the U.S. Navy, the men were using early computer technology to collect and analyze data. Frustrated with the inefficient data collection methods they were using, the three decided to create a product that would enable their task to be done more easily. In 1976, working in the garage at Truchard's home, the three founded a new company.

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